Van Aken Early History

by Dick Antonie Pieter van Aken

If you are interested, I can give you some historical details of the original
Van Aken family.

The Van Aken's originated in Limburg near the German border and the town
Aachen, or Aken in Dutch. These early Van Aken's where Catholics. Some of them
decided to change to the protestant religion and left for Great Britain, where
Henry the 8th allowed protestants. He himself became a protestant after a fall
out with the pope regarding his 8 wives. They started a community in London and
their church still stands today (St Austin Friers). They returned to Holland 80
years later, when protestants were accepted, and settled in the northern part. (Gelderland,
Utrecht and Noord Holland.) Many of them became church and community leaders.

I came across a book in South Africa describing a Pastor Petrus van Aken who
was born in Utrecht about 1660. He moved to South Africa in 1700 and started a
community church in Paarl. Unfortunately he only had 4 daughters and the family
name got lost in due course.

My family originated in Gelderland. Our strand moved to the colony Indonesia
in the early part of the 20th century. I was born in Utrecht and grew up in
Jakarta on the island Java. I spend 7 years in Amsterdam, spend 5 years traveling
Europe and Africa and married in London in 1971. We spend the past 30 years in
Cape Town (South Africa) and have 2 sons and a daughter. We now live in the UK
and I work for the University of Nottingham Trent.